Liverpool & Manchester 0-4-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Jupiter (Locobase 13520)

Data from DK Minor, "Pambour on Locomotion", American Railroad Journal, and Advocate of Internal Improvements, Volume V, No 20 (21 May 1936), p. 309.

Class Novelty (Locobase 635)

Novelty was designed by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson (who later perfected the screw propeller and designed the ironclad Monitor) to compete in the 1829 Rainhill trials. (The other two competitors were Timoth Hackworth's Sanspareil (Locobase 634) and Robert Stephenson's Rocket (Locobase 649)).

Novelty was indeed novel in appearance, having a large platform on which were placed the vertical boiler, the vertical cylinders, the fuel, and the feed-water hopper. The main water tank was carried under the frame. Fuel was fed through a small tube extending down through the center of the boiler. The gases wound back and forth through a horizontal boiler that stretched under the platform, exhausting through a small, upright pipe forward.

A bellows arrangement for drafting the boiler kept breaking down and the Novelty was unable to finish its trials. Some of its runs were quite fast, however, with one run peaking at 40 mph.

The design was not followed up, although as Daniel Kinnear Clark, C. E. , in his HISTORICAL PROGRESS OF THE LOCOMOTIVE (an 1855 work hosted on [] (viewed 26 Dec 2004)), reported, later experiments produced remarkable results: "This engine was proved, when fairly tried, to have consumed less than half the fuel per ton per mile required by the Rocket, notwithstanding the closeness and contracted sectional area of the flue of the Novelty, which was but one twenty- fifth of that of either of the other competing engines. The mode of stimulating combustion by compression, adopted in the Novelty, was, no doubt, the source of the economy, in conjunction with the very much greater proportion of heating surface to the area of grate, especially when intensity of action was essential."

Class Samson (Locobase 636)

Data from Comte F M G Pambour, A Practical Treatise on Locomotive Engines on Railways (London: John Weale, 1840), p 37. James Dredge (ed.), "Section V Historical Locomotives and Rolling Stock -- No 96, 'The Samson'", in A Record of the Transportation Exhibits at the World's Columbian Exposition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1894), p. 343-344.

Samson and Goliath were constructed exactly like the Planet series of 2-2-0s (Locobase 651) except for the wheel arrangement and a general enlargement of dimensions. Goliath differed from Samson in having seven fewer boiler tubes, a very slightly greater firebox area, and a total heating surface area of 447 sq ft (41.53 sq m). The original copper tubes installed in the firebox burned through within a matter of months and by the summer of 1833, the railway had substituted brass tubes.

On 4 May 1833, Martin Weatherburn drove the Samson into a dairy cart carrying 50 lb of butter and 80 dozen eggs. According to the Leicester Chronicler website -- [], accessed 27 May 2007 -- this incident led Robert Stephenson to invent, but not patent, the steam whistle when it was clear that having the driver blow a handheld horn simply wasn't enough warning.

The pair's long frame and short wheelbase caused an unsettling oscillation so, at George Stephenson's suggestion, the railway fitted an axle with smaller--diameter wheels along the frame behind the firebox. The components arrived from Stephenson's works in early 1833 and, once fitted, lengthened Samson's wheelbase to 9 ft 1 in (2.77 m). The change proved so satisfactory, Dredge noted, that Stephenson "at once took steps to add similar pairs of wheels to the engines he had originally constructed for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway."

Class Sanspareil (Locobase 634)

This was one of the competitors in the Rainhill trials of 1829, the other two being Robert Stephenson's Rocket (Locobase 649) and John Ericsson's Novelty (Locobase 635).

The Sanspareil had vertical cylinders at the head of the engine, firebox alongside the return flue, which was wrapped in a conical water jacket, and the stack at the rear. The most influential part of the design was again Hackworth's blast-pipe arrangement. The Sanspareil had no suspension and was too heavy, according to trial rules; in any event, the feed-water pump broke down and the Sanspareil could not complete the trials. Nevertheless, according to G A Sekon :"When in repair, the 'Sanspareil' ran faster, took a heavier load, and consumed less coke than the 'Rocket'..."

A darker explanation for Hackworth's failure can be found in Evolution of the Steam Locomotive 1803-1898 by GA Sekon (pseudonym for George Augustus Nokes). Take for example the story of the shoddy cylinder on p. 33:

"The cylinders were constructed by R. Stephenson and Co., and six had to be made before two perfect ones were obtained, the sixth one, indeed, only being fitted at Liverpool when the contest was in progress.

"It has been stated that these cylinders were purposely constructed in a faulty manner to prevent the 'Sanspareil' beating the 'Rocket.' This may or may not be true, but it is very evident that, save for Stephenson's imperfect workmanship in this respect, the 'Sanspareil' would have won the 500 prize. When the 'Sanspareil' was competing for the prize, one of the cylinders supplied by Stephenson and Co. burst, and it was found that the metal was only one-sixteenth of an inch thick! A nice state of things certainly!"

Then there's the tale of the theft of the secret of the draught, in which Hackworth's blast-pipe attracts Stephenson's scrutiny the day before the trials.

"...Thompson determined to watch the 'Sanspareil' all night. He therefore locked himself in the shed containing the engine that night, but towards daybreak sleep overcame him, and when he awoke he saw two men getting out of the window of the shed, and he found

the chimney door of the "Sanspareil" open, and some materials inside the chimney. The secret of the exhaust steam blast was stolen! The next evening the 'Rocket' again appeared ; this time she was fitted with a similar contrivance. The above is Hackworth's

foreman's version of the theft, but the 'Practical Mechanic's Journal' for June, 1850, gives the tale as told by the man who committed the theft."

Rainhilltrials.com has a more measured view of Sanspareil's shortcomings. "Hackworth had a serious handicap, compared with the Stephensons, in that he lacked the facilities to carry out the manufacture of the engine himself and he had to rely upon outside suppliers for various components, including his boilers and cylinders which gave so much trouble that he as able to get his engine to Rainhill only just in time."

In addition to the poorly made cylinder (which can be attributed as readily to the imprecision of much of the machining of the time), says Rainhilltrials, "The boiler had been supplied by Longrigdge's Bedlington Ironworks and was a poor job; the workmanship was so defective that it was necessary to run copper into the joints prior to caulking them."

Although originally purchased by the Liverpool and Manchester for 500 pounds, Sanspareil was later sold to the Bolton and Leigh more or less unaltered where it operated successfully until 1844.